Pontonier Painting Progress Update #2. . .

Here is where things stand this late Sunday morning.

You know, it's funny. Sometimes it seems almost like figures paint themselves, and that has been the case so far with these Minden pontoniers. Painting is, most of the time these days, a real chore, especially since free time is such a rare commodity. However, the ol' brush and painting hand have been fleet of foot this weekend. Yes!

The next step later this evening after a preschool Christmas presentation, in which the Young Master is singing (hopefully), will involve damp-brushing white on various shins, calves, shirtsleeves, and the exposed chests and tummies of those figures who have unbuttoned vests/waistcoats. Then, it's onto the boards and oars as well as various smaller details like hair, stocks, buttons, and shoe buckles.

The uniform depicted is imaginary, but my painting has been informed by various Kronoskaf illustrations of Hanoverian artillery and engineers as well as Bavarian artillery.

For those who might be interested, oil colors used thus far include: Fleshtone, Ivory Black, and London Yellow (Winsor & Newton Griffin Alkyd Fast Drying Oil Colors) and an ancient tube of Grumbacher Manganese Blue that once belonged to dear ol' Mom, along with healthy doses of Liquin Original to thin small blobs of these colors down quite a bit and help then flow nicely over figure surfaces. Bases have been painted with two thin coats of Citadel Goblin Green (when it was still labeled as Goblin Green).

-- Stokes

And here is today's seasonal illustration, from Sweden this time, depicting 'Tomten' delivering gifts and goodies to (presumably) good little Swedish boys and girls. I wonder if there are any Holger Eriksson figures in his sack? The letter J is for 'julgran,' the Swedish word for Christmas tree. The Norwgians are more straightforward -- some might say characteristically blunt -- and use the more obvious 'juletre.'

Comments

Scheck said…

Stokes, the same situation with us - kids, wives, work - spare time to paint... and the Xmas stress all around.
The pontoniers look great, already in this status.
Go on - you have a creative hand for interesting uniform compositions!
All the best, Peter

1:37 AM

It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings. Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat. The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week. Next up, the neck stocks. I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit. Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step. "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes

A Little More Brushwork. . .

A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday). Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men. Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished. Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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